A dream proving of Petroleum

by Elizabeth Thompson

A dream proving is carried out each year within
the academic programme of the Bristol
Homeopathic Hospital
to bring us as a group into the direct experience of a homeopathic medicine. We
offer students the option to take a 30C of an unknown remedy and to record their
dreams for three nights. This dream proving of Petroleum took place in October
2008. It is interesting to see these themes appearing in cases that have needed
hydrocarbon remedies (see the Petroleum / Glonoine case in this issue).

In describing the themes of the dream
proving, reference is made to Roger Morrison’s illuminating book on the Hydrocarbons,
which I would encourage any homeopath to have on their desk. Morrison separates
this large group of remedies into various subgroups, one subgroup being its use
in the world. Petroleum can be seen as the group of fuel remedies, which
include Alcoholus, Benzenum petroleum, Benzinum, Carbo vegetabilis, Carboneum,
Fuligni, Kerostenum, Napthalinum, Paraffinum and Petroleum.

Petroleum as proved by Hahnemann was
liquid oil held in reservoirs by non-porous shale or rock oil (petros is Greek
for rock). A number of homeopathic pharmacies state that they now use kerosene
to derive petroleum from crude oil rather than shale oil. The idea to dig deep
for oil came with the first oil well in 1859, which began a whole new age of
industry and travel.

Some of the major themes seen in the
proving include:

Travel, transport, travelling fast, by car, bus,
train, coach, rocket

Exhaustion, weakness and depletion

Confusion, disorientation, weird, vacant

Explosion, fire

Violence, unfeeling, blank, kidnap, gangster,
sinister

Industrial
age, Technological, or
nostalgia for the past

Money, exploitation, materialism and poverty

Dream
Themes:

Travelling
under pressure

One of the main themes of the proving was
of travel: travel by bus, tube, train, car, boat, even by space pod. An obvious
quality of this fuel substance is its ability to propel vehicles to move us around,
sometimes too fast, so that we become disorientated in time and place. Travel
under pressure, moving fast, being late, too many people pushed into one
vehicle.

Future
technology, industrial age, and the past­

The rate of change of society in the
industrial age is mainly down to petroleum, and more recently silicon. Technology
appears in the dreams: laptop, mobile phones, a blown-up computer combining two
petroleum themes of technology and explosion. Travel by space pod looked to
future technology. There was also a sense of the past, going back in time,
returning to medieval times in a chill winter. A hardworking common man in a
boiler suit was an image of the industrial age.

Explosion

Because of the pressure and urgency, there
can be frustration and anger, sometimes explosive. “The confrontation is
explosive.” “Suddenly there is a huge explosion and the words ‘the power of the
dark void’.” A computer damaged – possibly blown up.

War
and superpower

Morrison sees the petrochemical age as one
of greed and wielding power with an unfeeling position on the consequences of
war. This theme of power is to be competitive, supremely powerful. A theme of
the dream proving was war, Iraq,
the Taliban and the USA,
superpower. Many of the wars currently raging have oil at their centre: oil
equals money equals power, which leads to world domination.

Nature
under threat

Nature under threat, animals being herded
and oppressed. Underground comes through strongly, where the substance comes
from; also representing the unconscious mind, and the birth canal (Row 2
carbon). There was also the theme of water, sea, a swimming pool. The drive and
thrust of hydrocarbon fuels have put male energy in the ascendancy in this
industrial era, and domination of the female energy. Feminine energy is seen in
the gypsy woman with an ample cleavage, who is blank and empty. The
pharmaceutical industry relies almost entirely on oil, whilst Gaia is left reeling
since oil was forced out of the earth for greed and acquisition of wealth.

Unfeeling,
blank

A menacing woman: “Her eyes are blank –
zombie-like. A great empty space where her irises should be.” “She shows no
sign of feeling the injury.“ Unfeeling at the sight of slabs of raw meat on a
conveyor belt. The image of blood seen in the dreams correlates with the film
“Let There Be Blood”, a story of some of the first oil wells and the greed that
drove these men to get more and more.

Sinister
behaviour

Sinister behaviour or motives, a sense of
hostility and resentment. “He is acting erratically, suspiciously, weirdly.” “They
cannot arrest him but the undercurrent is of seedy crime, possibly even child
abduction?” Use of force, menace, kidnap, murder; “I was in a car
with three or four gangster types. We were discussing murdering somebody
in graphic detail … a violent killing and it involved guns. I awoke suddenly
sweating.” Inflicting pain in self-defence when grabbed. Assassination: “There
was a beautiful lady sitting in the audience. She was there to try to
assassinate one of the (presidential) candidates; she had 6 daggers. She threw
5 of them but missed and she kept the last in the sheath that was tied around
her thigh.” “Behind the walls one can feel a thudding oppressive noise that is
trying to be disguised; not sure what would be found lower down, but a sense of
something nasty.”

The
birthing process – transitions into and out of life

Carbon represents the moment the foetus decides,
“Am I in or am I out?” An alternating state and indecision we know so well of Graphites.
“Can I be independent now that I am going into a new world alone?” The need for
support; and anxiety, starting from sleep. “I have to lie very close to my
husband to get support from him so that I am not alone in the dark void myself.”
We saw themes of the second series, the shock of carbon, and the issue of “will
I survive?” It is a state between life and death. “Going down in lift got
stuck; will I survive this journey?” Images of birth, death and graves, and leaving
the elderly and infirm behind when people were selected for travel in a space
pod, knowing they would not survive the journey, they would die soon anyway.

Weird,
Strange, Lost, Confused – longing for familiar surroundings

There were issues of the early mineral
rows, of being on unstable ground, “unsure of ground; test ground”; lost and
confused. “It was dark outside. I don’t remember where we were parked.”
Familiar places seem strange. “I return to an old house; door way blocked off;
couldn’t find the way, lost/confused; familiar but not as I remember.”

It’s a state between awake and asleep (the
anaesthetics) “unpleasant, unsure, weird.” “I return to familiar places, in a
cinema; trapped in chair – surprise; familiar, weird house felt familiar,
narrow long garden; weird places, river.” The confusion was seen as “weird”, a
word shared with magnolia’s bewildered sensation. We see themes of magnolia
family and the hydrocarbons interlinking in Camphora, where everything seems weird.

Blue

Another theme was the exhaustion,
depletion and cyanosis of carbon remedies with the colour blue (light, blue,
dark blue, changing blues), and low energy state of corpulence and an under-functioning
system.